by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
D<\/span>espite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel’s current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from\u00a0Lebanonand\u00a0Gaza\u00a0well after\u00a0Israel\u00a0had withdrawn from both places.<\/p>\n Indeed, if sacred Arab ground were the driving force of the Middle East crisis, then surely\u00a0Syria\u00a0itself would now be willing to risk a shooting war over the all important Israeli-occupied\u00a0Golan Heights\u00a0. Meanwhile,\u00a0Cairo\u00a0is still perhaps the nexus of virulent Arab anti-Semitism, even though\u00a0Israel\u00a0finished handing over Sinai to\u00a0Egypt\u00a0in 1982.<\/p>\n The world prayed that after the unilateral departure of\u00a0Israel\u00a0from\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0in 2000 and\u00a0Gaza\u00a0in 2005, and the recent elections in\u00a0Beirut\u00a0and the\u00a0West Bank\u00a0, it was witnessing an incremental evolution toward a lasting peace between rational democratic states. Gradually,\u00a0Israel\u00a0was returning to its 1967 borders. In response, gradually, it was hoped,\u00a0Israel\u00a0‘s Arab neighbors would vote into office reasonable statesmen who would renounce terror and get on with the business of crafting workable economies and governments. But all that optimism presupposed a radical change in the Middle Eastern mentality. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.<\/p>\n So, if the most recent war in\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0and\u00a0Gaza\u00a0is not about land per se, then whence arises the elemental desire to destroy\u00a0Israel\u00a0?<\/p>\n The answer boils down to Islamists feeling their reputation is at stake. Words like “honor” and “pride” are evoked \u2014 in the sense that they need to be regained \u2014 by every insecure radical in the Islamic world, from al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden to Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and\u00a0Iran\u00a0‘s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Fist-shaking crowds, fiery mullahs and terrorists all boast of not giving an inch to infidels and of the restoration of the now sullied honor of the Islamic people.<\/p>\n W<\/span>hy their hurt?<\/p>\n For about the last half-century, globalization has passed most of the recalcitrantMiddle East\u00a0by \u2014 economically, socially and politically. The result is that there are now few inventions and little science emanating from the Islamic world \u2014 but a great deal of poverty, tyranny and violence. And rather than make the necessary structural changes that might end cultural impediments to progress and modernity \u2014 such as tribalism, patriarchy, gender apartheid, polygamy, autocracy, statism and fundamentalism \u2014 too many Middle Easterners have preferred to embrace the reactionary past and the cult of victimization.<\/p>\n At one time or another, they have welcomed all the bankrupt ideologies that traditionally blame others for prior self-induced failure: fascism, communism, Baathism, Pan-Arabism and, most recently, Islamic fundamentalism.<\/p>\n When there is high unemployment, corruption, zero economic growth, endemic illiteracy and no freedom, mullahs, dictators and jihadists of the Middle East always seem to fault the ancient colonial power \u2014 Britain, France or Italy (though rarely Islamic Turkey) \u2014 that supposedly set them back over a century ago. Or they try blaming the omnipotent\u00a0United States\u00a0whose oilmen developed the riches of the Gulf and whose military has saved Muslims from Kosovo to\u00a0Kuwait\u00a0.<\/p>\n But above all, for decades leaders like Gamal Nasser, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden have scapegoated tinyIsrael\u00a0.<\/p>\n It is the closest Western bogeyman, and its Holocaust survivors transformed a part of desert into a technologically sophisticated Western state.\u00a0Israel\u00a0‘s astounding success is a constant irritant to many nearby Muslims, representing the infidel’s ability to fashion a prosperous Middle Eastern society without oil revenues under democratic auspices.<\/p>\n Victimization turns out to be the real creed of the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0, uniting disparate Shiites, Sunnis, dictators, theocrats and terrorists. “They did it to us” offers an easy explanation of why Islamic states are now weak and offer little hope to millions of their poor, who, ironically, emigrate to the much pilloried West by the millions.<\/p>\n American cash aid, Israeli concessions, windfall petrol profits and, most of all, appeasement of radical Islamists can do nothing to alleviate these perceived grievances.<\/p>\n Instead, there will be no peace in the general\u00a0Middle East\u00a0until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law. Without these reforms, they will continue to fail, seeking easy refuge in the shreds of mythical ancestral honor \u2014 and this pathetic neurosis of blaming nearby\u00a0Israel\u00a0for the loss of it.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Despite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel’s current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from\u00a0Lebanonand\u00a0Gaza\u00a0well after\u00a0Israel\u00a0had withdrawn from both places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[771],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-11f","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3041,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/surreal-gaza\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":0},"title":"Surreal Gaza","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The world reacts I spent today reading accounts of Gaza \u2014NY Times, AP, Reuters, etc. There are no terrorists, just militants. Not much about past rocket attacks on Israel \u2014 most everything on the crowded conditions of Gaza. Iranian aid is rarely elaborated on;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2009"","block_context":{"text":"January 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/january-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7737,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-stronger-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":1},"title":"A Stronger Israel?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Elite opinion believes Israel will lose \u201clong-term\u201d whatever happens in the next weeks. Not necessarily. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In postmodern wars, we are told, there is no victory, no defeat, no aggressors, no defenders, just a tragedy of conflicting agendas. But in such a mindless\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via NRO","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pic_giant_080514_SM_Israel-Flag-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3935,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-options-are-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":2},"title":"What Options Are Left?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Arab Nations Show No Sign of Concessions or Desire for Peace. by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The conventional wisdom is that the\u00a0United States\u00a0is so tied down that it can't do much about the rocket attacks on\u00a0Israel\u00a0, the blatant sponsorship of terrorists by\u00a0Iran\u00a0and\u00a0Syria\u00a0, or the Iranian nuclear program. Oil\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2006"","block_context":{"text":"July 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/july-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2010,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-israel-survive\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":3},"title":"Can Israel Survive?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Will Israel survive? That question hasn\u2019t really been asked since 1967. Then, a far weaker Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab dictatorships that were equipped with sophisticated weapons from their nuclear patron, the Soviet Union. But now, things are far worse\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":810,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-anti-semitism\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":4},"title":"The New Anti-Semitism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Not long ago,\u00a0The Economist\u00a0ran an unsigned editorial called the \u201cAuschwitz Complex.\u201d The unnamed author blamed serial Middle East tensions on both Israel\u2019s unwarranted sense of victimhood, accrued from the Holocaust, and its unwillingness to \u201cto give up its empire.\u201d As far as Israel\u2019s paranoid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3734,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israel-did-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":3921,"position":5},"title":"Israel Did it!","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"When in doubt, shout about Israel. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online These are strange times. Perennially beleaguered Israel, for instance, was hit all summer long with rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, as the world watched and kept score in an absurd new game of proportionality: Israel was to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2006"","block_context":{"text":"December 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/december-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3923,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions\/3923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}